164 ROUSSEAU. 



timents are cold, they are unnatural ; the reprimand 

 of yesterday never would have stifled the passion of 

 to-day. The last effect that this letter, filled with 

 admirable description of a garden and an aviary, could 

 ever produce, is assuredly that of melting the heart in 

 tenderness ; and as far as this first letter goes, the woe 

 denounced in the * Confessions' must attach on all who 

 read it. 



The other (Letter xvii.) is of a much more ambitious 

 character ; but, with one single exception, it is liable 

 to the remark to which every part of the ' Nouvelle 

 Helo'ise' justly gives rise that it is rhetoric, not elo- 

 quence; it is declamation, not true expression of 

 sentiment. The most laboured passage, beyond all 

 doubt, is the speech which St. Preux addresses to 

 Julie on taking her to the grove and the rocks 

 where he had passed his time when separated from 

 her, and when only thinking of her and writing to 

 her ; it is a very long speech, full of set phrases, and 

 describing the icicles on rocks, and snow festoons on 

 trees, and the cold only made bearable by the fire in 

 his heart ; touching also on ornithology, as well as 

 meteorology : " le vorace epervier ; le corbeau funebre ; 

 1'aigle terrible des Alpes" (a phrase, by the way, which 

 no one living among the Alps would ever use) ; and 

 then ending in a rant of "Fille trop constamment 

 aimee ! Oh toi pour qui j'^tais ne !" &c. She interrupts 

 him with " Allons nous en ; 1'air de ce lieu n'est pas 

 bon pour moi." Now this is certainly better than the 

 speech, but it is as certainly not pathetic. What 

 follows in the boat is much finer ; and is both well 

 conceived, excepting at first, and well executed. He 



